Construction projects nearing completion for water company

The new well in Valley Stream will produce up to two million gallons of water each day.

Brian Croce/Herald

Construction on a new well at Long Island American Water's Valley Stream facility.

Brian Croce/Herald

By Brian Croce

Turning a faucet or watering a lawn are relatively simple tasks for Long Island residents, but there’s nothing simple about the way the water makes it way to the thousands of homes on the south shore of Nassau County. That’s the job of Long Island American Water, which currently has major and routine construction projects going on at its plants in Lynbrook and Valley Stream.

NYAW, which has its offices based in Lynbrook, has 34 plants in the southern portion of Nassau County to pump water from aquifers and supply it to more than 370,000 residents each day.

In Valley Stream, the NYAW plant on Hendrickson Avenue is expected to have a brand new well online in July. According to Richard Kern, director of operations for NYAW, the original well failed due to old age in 2011 and a new one was needed.

The new well, which runs approximately 500 feet into the ground, will have the ability to produce two million gallons of water each day. There is another well at the site that has been online throughout the construction project.

Kern said the system can get by without additional wells in the winter months, but as it gets warmer more wells are required. The new well in Valley Stream will provide additional water capacity to the system, he said.

The project is on schedule, Kern added, and costs approximately $500,000.

When the project is finished, the site will also see some more greenery as grass will be planted at areas where there are construction vehicles and workers using.

Its North Lynbrook plant, located on Whitehall Street, is in the midst of a total rebuild, and when it reopens in August, it will have the capability to filter iron of out water, along with a few other improvements. The plant’s two wells will each have the capability of producing 2 million gallons of water a day.

Richard Kern, director of operations for NYAW, said the company closely monitors the water quality at each of its plants, and decided it was time to upgrade the Lynbrook facility because of the increasing iron levels at the plant, which features two wells. “The iron levels in one of the wells started to exceed the limits that we can use for drinking water,” he said, “so we’re investing in a filtration plant to remove iron.”